Posted
by
Zonk
on Thursday September 21, 2006 @03:35PM
from the to-the-tld-alice dept.

avatar4d writes to mention an article on CIO about a new 'space race' on the internet between China and the U.S.. China is currently hard at work at what is being called the 'Chinese Next Generation Internet' (CNGI). With plans to unveil the project at the 2008 Beijing Olympics, the network is part of a plan to leap ahead of the United States in innovation and technology. From the article: "The strategy, outlined in China's latest five-year plan, calls for the country to transition its economy from one based almost entirely on manufacturing to one that produces its own scientific and technological breakthroughs — using a new and improved version of today's dominant innovation platform, the Internet. 'CNGI is the culmination of this revolutionary plan' to turn China into the world's innovation capital, says Wu Hequan, vice president of the Chinese Academy of Engineering and the chairman of the CNGI Expert Committee, the group overseeing the project. 'We will use it as a way to break through and be competitive in the global economic market.'"

When you look at the four thousand years of Chinese history, it can't help but scream one clear message, and that is the message of repeated lost opportunities due to their obsession with preserving the established order at all cost. That is why they are trying to create their own, closed "internet" and that is also why the US is so obsessed with controlling what is really a global resource as well. I think that this obsession with control will profoundly hurt bith nations, although since China's obsession

Shijian-8 carries at least 2,000 types of seed samples from a variety of species including those grown in normal crops on Earth, as well as fungi. In all, about 474 pounds of seeds are stowed away aboard the satellite, according to the state-owned Xinhua news agency.

Heralded as China's first satellite primarily designed for space breeding, Shijian-8's seed payload will be returned to Earth after about two weeks of flight, the China Daily newspaper reported in July.

Sounds great, for them at least, doesn't it? Do some basic research. Get ahead of the Americans. So you can imagine the mental double-take at this tidbit from the same article:

After being recovered, the seeds will be used by researchers attempting to improve the quality and yield of terrestrial crops. Chinese officials contend that seeds exposed to space radiation and microgravity contain more vitamins and other crucial minerals.

WHAT? China's greatest minds put together a launch and re-entry vehicle, and "officials" load it with almost 500 pounds of seeds so that they will magically become superplants? WTF? Did someone in China not get the memo that their former occupiers are not *really* developing giant robots [mechavskaiju.com], and that Little Shop of Horrors [wikipedia.org] is a work of fiction, not a battle plan?

The article claims that China will be a country that "produces its own scientific and technological breakthroughs". Sending a truckload of seeds to come back as food for the Fantastic Four sounds more like a continuation of the tradition that brought us tiger penis, rhinoceros horn, and bear bile [wikipedia.org] therapies. And here I was, worried we were losing our edge.

Sending a truckload of seeds to come back as food for the Fantastic Four sounds more like a continuation of the tradition that brought us tiger penis, rhinoceros horn, and bear bile therapies. And here I was, worried we were losing our edge.

Damn. You waited until the second to last sentence, and then blew my hopes for a Fantastic Four joke.

And if you think the american economy is crappy... well you don't live here and you have no idea. I can't complain...

If you get out of your little tunnel and open your eyes, you'll find that the economy is not so great. Real wages have been going down since the 70's (following the start of the outsourcing trend [slashdot.org]), and many of our fellow americans have been financing the difference. In the last couple of years, this means Adjustable Rate Mortgages to afford payments on a house, 0% auto loans, growing credit

China won't get away unscathed. U.S. consumers pretty much financed China's economic growth over the past decade. When the gravy train derails, expect China to be smacked against the bulkhead too. You want to talk about real-estate bubbles? Chinese costal cities are as bubblicious as they come, with housing prices rivaling that of California. Pretty soon, there will be a series of giant popping sounds circling the globe.

All trade imbalances are equalized by investment capital flowing back the other way. In this case, China is massively investing back in America -- because America is still a good investment. Our desirability as an investment is indicated by the low interest rates that we are required to pay on foreign investment capital. If the world thought that we were a high risk, they would charge us a high interest rate.

They export huge amounts to the US, and get dollars in exchange. With those dollars they can either buy oil, buy something from the US (goods & services or property), or buy something from other countries that need dollars for buying oil. Obviously there is a limit to how much oil they need, and how much oil others need, so they end up buying something from the US. Now they don't really need any goods, as they already manufacture most things themselves (including entertainment through piracy), and the demand for services is somewhat limited as well, so they end up investing in the US. Now, you seem to think this equalizes trade imbalances, but you are forgetting one important detail. When you invest in something, you own the investment, which means that you get the profit from it. You americans are spending your capital, and taken to it's extreme it means that you will no longer own your economy.

Your government has some ways of avoiding this:

- Ensure that oil is traded in dollars. Methods include securing the oil fields and ensuring that oil producing countries stay friendly to US interests. Iraq started accepting euros as payment for oil the year 2000, and after the invasion the puppet government switched back to dollars. Iran is planning a oil bourse where oil is sold in euros, that's the real weapon of mass destruction Bush is afraid of, don't be surprised when some of the bombs meant for nuclear facilities level Kish [wikipedia.org] by "mistake". Expect a coup in Venezuela, or at least an attempted one unless they back down on their attempts to switch OPEC to sell oil in euros.

- Prevent foreigners from investing in the US. The Dubai port deal [wikipedia.org], and Unocal [wikipedia.org] are good examples. This isn't such a good way as foreigners will realise that they won't be able to spend their dollar holdings, which brings us to the next item.

- Inflation. By printing out huge amounts of dollars the purchasing power of an individual dollar collapses. This way it doesn't matter how much dollars foreigners have, as their dollar stockpiles will melt away. Of course this can't be done overtly, so manipulation of inflation indicators is a must. Hiding the M3 data [wikipedia.org] is also important, can't have foreigners knowing how much dollars there really are. Oh? They're just cutting costs, nothing special about it? Yeah... Saving a couple of million per year by hiding the M3 data will really help balance the budget...

- Default. Pass a law that says all dollars are now worthless paper, and issue a new currency. Tell the rest of the world to get lost, you're not paying these stupid debts, and dare them to try and collect. Obviously the US would not be very liked after that, and it'd be a wonder if anyone ever borrows money to you after that.

- Cut a lot of government programs, and adjust the budget so that you get a sizeable surplus, and start paying off your debts. Political suicide, and I think it'll be a cold day in hell before this happens.

This is a long-term process, so don't get all disappointed when the economy doesn't assplode next year.

Excellent analysis. I've just one little point that I'd like to reply to:You americans are spending your capital, and taken to it's extreme it means that you will no longer own your economy.

'We [poor] americans' are simply playing along in an economy that's rigged to benefit bankers and globalists, mostly because we don't know any better, and partially because it's hard to break out of the trap when 'everyone else' doesn't realize that there's a problem.

The whole world knows that China is the real innovator and the next world superpower, when will Americans realize this ?

Innovator in what, near slave labor? Oppression of it's people? While the US isn't perfect in the way it behaves and treats it's people, it is still FAR better than most countries and Far FAR better than China.

What China has is cheap labor with lots of foreign inventment because of that cheap labor. That's it. Everything else pretty much sucks. The people that are not in the elite class ha

And while your shuttle fleet was grounded, they launched two manned spacecraft in orbit.good for china, now they're only 50 years behind the US and Russia.

And while your country is spending gazillions on invading Iraq and others, they improve their economy with 10 percent each year.gazillions?...making up words somehow makes these into facts? The US still has an economy FIVE times the size of China and is still nearly 30% of the world's economy.

Sorry, but China's growth rate is a prime example of the catch-up effect [wikipedia.org]. In short, China's growth rate is double-digits (or near there) because they were using their labor so inefficiently until recently that they only have one direction to go. Besides, if GDP growth was proof of a country's greatness, perhaps China better look in their rear-view mirror, because Azerbaijan [sportsforum.ws] is catching up fast.

As for China being the next world superpower, call me when they get a navy [hazegray.org]. Sure, they can nuke us, but they can't even get past Chile's navy to hold the nuked territory, much less our own, and it's not like we don't have a few nukes to play with. Heck, the US has 2/3 of the quantitative aircraft carrier fleet [globalsecurity.org] in the world, and 4/5 of the deck space.

China's GDP was $7.2 trillion in 2001 [google.com], compared to the USA, which clocked in at $11.75 trillion in 2001 [google.com]. Plus, thanks to China's 'free' government and its 'honesty and trustworthiness', there's no guarantee China's numbers are even that high [forbes.com], nor that they've been growing that fast.

Assuming these numbers [sportsforum.ws], which are supposed to be newer

And while your shuttle fleet was grounded, they launched two manned spacecraft in orbit.

We launched more astronauts on the last shuttle mission then China will launch this entire decade. They are also literally groveling [sinodaily.com] to hitch a ride with us to the space station or the moon. We sure as hell don't need them or the Ruskies to get back. They are still 40 years behind.

And while your country is spending gazillions on invading Iraq and others, they improve their economy with 10 percent each year.

And while your country is spending gazillions on invading Iraq and others, they improve their economy with 10 percent each year.

Now just a second here, all those vile corporations of the military-industrial-corporate-congressional-prison -complex are making a fortune off of this unlawful invasion and occupation of Iraq. And China's economy is only improving so much because all of the American corporations (make that corporateers) keep sending all the jobs - in all categories - over there (along with Europ

I said "it's not as free as it might be." But if you listened to the/. crowd, you'd think people there were little more than rabbits trapped in the government warrens. It's a little tedious and a little arrogant.

Well, that begs the question then: Why did they send seeds to space? The interesting thing to do would be to observe those seeds growing in a micro-gravity environment. But they're just sending them up there only to... bring them back down?

Makes you wonder if the sattelite doesn't serve some other, undisclosed military purposes...

Underestimating a competitor is never a smart move. Remember that the U.S. auto industry was laughing at the first japanese cars to reach our continent. The japanese eventually gave them a good run for their money.

A good run for their money? American automakers are all perilously close to bankruptcy, struggling with pensions and high healthcare costs. Toyota and Honda are healthier than ever with growing marketshares. Toyota will become the largest automaker in the world by marketshare within the next year. I'd say the Japanese have given US automakers a bit more than just a run for their money.

relatively uneducated communists take over and purge the educated.But it really depends when you look. When China had "junks" [wikipedia.org], the West didn't really have anything similar. Same for silk and porcelain. China was making developments towards steel [wikipedia.org] hundreds of years Before Common Era, that wouldn't be matched in the West until medieval times.

Now, they're considered backwards, for good reason, and probably will be for many decades to come. It takes awhile to recover from such a devastating and calculated blow t

I have seen dozens of news report about Atlantis' launch. Never saw a single report about the fact that China is doing research about breeding crops in orbit (doesn't this give some insights about the seriousness of their plan to build a permanent moon base or is it just me ?). The question is simpel : why do the medias don't report this ?

Where are they going to get all these expert scientists and researchers for this? IMO, you can't just instantly (4 years, for a country to change its entire economy is essentially instantaneous for that kind of thing) change your entire economy to become a bunch of super duper experts..

That only works if you can entice those people to move there somehow. It was easy for the US to entice Europeans to come work here: at the time, it was the aftermath of WWII, and while Europe was devastated, the US was completely unharmed (on its own soil) and entering an economic boom. Who wouldn't want to move in those conditions?

These days, things are a little different: China, while improving quickly, is still a third-world country, and has a very oppressive

> IMO, you can't just instantly (4 years, for a country to change its entire economy is essentially instantaneous for that kind of thing) change your entire economy to become a bunch of super duper experts..

Well, they changed their entire economy instantly to become a bunch of super-duper peasant farmers not too long ago, so there's some precedent anyway.

Right now, the Asian tech industries excel at not innovation but copying and improving upon existing designs which typically originate elsewhere. This is not just a Chinese thing -- look at the Japanese auto industry or Korean flat panel fabs, for example. It's quite a jump to magically switch your entire economy's sweet spot to one that's based on innovation -- in five years, no less -- but I think the biggest thing that the Chinese are missing out on is the *reason* for that innovation. Here in the States, tech isn't government-mandated and government-controlled, we don't fix our currency rate, and, above all else, it's possible to become very, very, VERY rich if you're successful in tech. Let's be honest -- our tech industry takes advantage of human greed (for better and for worse), something that runs contrary to communism at its core. The negative is that we let failing companies fail, jobs are lost, etc., but the positive is that there's actually a real INCENTIVE to innovate.

Here in the States, tech isn't government-mandated and government-controlled, we don't fix our currency rate, and, above all else, it's possible to become very, very, VERY rich if you're successful in tech.

You can also grow very very very rich in china too. It a different game but the essentials are the same. Connections, hard work, a bit of luck, a few bribes, and exploiting those below you. Same in the US as in China. There are apartments in beijing with a lease price of 500,000+ yuan (~90,000+ US) per mo. It's a sign of wealth when you have such sky high realistate.

The negative is that we let failing companies fail, jobs are lost, etc., but the positive is that there's actually a real INCENTIVE to innovate.

is not always so. If you have enough influence, you can get the government to bail you out (airline industry), change the laws (entertainment industry), etc, at the expense of everyone else. Large companies in expensive industries do not respond to market forces gracefully.

Nope. 5 years of C++ experience, knowledge of 3D math, and the ability to pass a (fairly simple) test. Salary depends upon what you negotiate - but judging from mine, we're paying about average. (Or I'm a bad negotiator;)

I'd side with you, except what else to use? Java/C# pay a small but significant performance cost, and others like Erlang would prune down the talent pool to basically empty. Pure C might be a solution, but it brings its own problems to the table...

(I work on games, so that small performance cost actually *does* matter)

The technology at the heart of CNGI is an emerging communication standard called Internet protocol version 6 (IPv6). The Internet protocol is the Internet's version of a postal envelope, containing information such as the destination and return addresses, and details about a package's contents. The current standard, IPv4 (IPv5 never made it out of the lab), doesn't have enough unique addresses for every would-be user in the world to connect to the Internet. IPv6 solves this problem, and is also more secure and efficient than its predecessor. For these and other reasons, most experts agree that a shift to an IPv6-based Internet is inevitable.

So in otherwords they plan to move to IPv6 and call the idea their own? Come on guys. You can do better then that! I've been an advocate of pushing IPv6 adoption for a long time. For some reason there is a lot of resistance to it.

It's not resistance, just a lack of interest. Not enough people will care until after we run out of IP addresses and conflicts occur. Society tends to not be very proactive unless the drive comes from authority.

There's a lot of hardware out there that's very fast at IPv4 but not IPv6. We've got a bunch on campus, our whole core. They are combo switches/routers (layer-3 switches if you like). Basically, when using IPv4 they don't have to touch the CPU very much. They can, in essence, route the first packet for a connection then establish a flow and switch the rest. All done in ASICs, very fast. Well these things can support IPv6, if you install a software upgrade, but only in software. There's no hardware backing i

Ah... if it only was that easy. Unfortunately, Chinese have a vastly different idea of country, government and what gives a government the right to govern its people. Watch the Jet-Li movie Hero (or any of the other Chinese kung-fu flicks) to get an idea of that. Yeah, yeah, movies aren't reality, but they do give you an idea of the mindset of the target audience.Personally, I don't see the current government changing very much. As long as prosperity improves, as long as there's plenty of opportunity to mak

So, China wants a large population of smart people, trained and able to ask fundamental questions, who won't question Party Orthodoxy... One of two things will happen: Another cultural revolution, or the overthrow of the regime.

In 1984, there was another suggestion. When English was replaced with Newspeak, scientists, engineers, doctors, and other professionals would continue to speak in their usual jargon. "Capacitor", "hypotenuse", and "spleen" have no political connotation, after all.

Up until recently, I might have agreed with you, that a fascist regime can't keep smart people asking questions without either clamping down, or being overthrown.But I'm starting to doubt it since talking to some people recently immigrated from China. As I read their attitude, the regime has read its Machiavelli, and is being very smart. As Machiavelli advised, they rule from fear and power, BUT allow people a lot of freedom and even safety within strict limits. In fact, enough freedom to grow rich and b

China has historically been competing with the West, at various levels throughout history and national inferiority complex notwithstanding. During the 70's and the 80's, one of the most popular slogans was "Surpass England, Pursue America". Its "Four Modernizations" and various manifestations of five-year plans are simply more of the same.

It is interesting that China would do anything to give the impression that it is an advanced, highly evolved civilization, while everyone else notices cracks at the seams. The comment about space-born seeds having higher mineral and vitamin content would have been hilarious had they not been so astonishingly revealing about their collective peasant mentality.

So, er, who's gonna make stuff? Oh, wait, that means that all the western nations who's economies are moving ever closer to being entirely reliant on intellectual property with a real value of nil and are banking on the force of law and international treaties to bouy their economies up whilst shifting the manufacture of real goods to China will have to start making stuff themselves again. Right now China has got us all over a barrel because they're where we get the majority of our goods, why would they fritter it all away moving to an economic model like ours?

I predict a rise in the popularity of handcrafted objects from local artisans.As basic goods are increasinly manufactured in automated robofabs, people will begin to furnish their homes with cheap, durable, simple objects, and spend their discretionary income on handcrafted wood, ceramic, and metal decorative objects made by local craftsmen.

Over time, even handcrafted functional objects will become desireable (to those that can afford them).

"Right now China has got us all over a barrel because they're where we get the majority of our goods"

Not to be too critical, but this doesn't make much sense. It would be just as apt to say we've got THEM over a barrel, because we are their biggest market. In other words, they're where we get the majority of our goods, but we're where they get the majority of their *cash*.

That's "globalization." It increases the degree to which economies rely *on each other*.

So, it sounds like dispite the technical challenges, the largest problem you have over there is in dealing with government interference. Look on the bright side, at least your post shows that for all the problems you're having, censorship isn't one of them!

Interesting link. And it led to this link [doingbusiness.org], which I'll use to preempt the "Swedish are Tax Commies" talk that's sure to ensue.

The effective tax that a medium size company in the United States must pay or withhold within a year is shown below. Entrepreneurs there must make 10 payments, spend 325 hours, and pay 45.96% of gross profit in taxes." (To wit, not that much less than in Sweden, which provides better public services.)

"Everyone said I was crazy. I said F* everybody and I tried it anyway. Now I am a millionaire and everyone is trying to copy me."A. United StatesB. China

"Everyone said I was crazy. I said F* everybody and I tried it anyway. Now I am in a re-education camp having my personality broken down and rebuilt into one more suitable to the party."A. United StatesB. China

1-"Everyone said I was crazy. I said F* everybody and I tried it anyway. Now I am a millionaire and everyone is trying to copy me."A. United StatesB. China

1-"Everyone said I was crazy. I said F* everybody and I tried it anyway. Now I am in a re-education camp having my personality broken down and rebuilt into one more suitable to the party."A. United StatesB. China

Shortly after Iraq being overthrown, I remember one of Saddam's top guys, who had been captured, being interviewed, and saying something like "America didn't win because of its culture or anything like that. It just won because of its technical superiority."

I watched this, shaking my head, and thinking, "They will never get it. You could try to explain to this guy, until you're blue in the face, that America's 'technical superiority' DERIVES from its culture -- its freedom to innovate, diversity of ideas, etc -- but you'd just be wasting your breath."

Of course, that's not to say someone else couldn't create a culture that is even MORE dynamic, inquisitive, vibrant, etc. If THAT happened, I would worry about being surpassed. Otherwise, not so much.

Scientific training, related to maths, physics, chemical, and technological branches, many engineering branches, including computer science, industrial engineering, etc. represents a huge effort, both in time and space (space as people, time as people training periods). Where I live, Europe, most countries have *decades* of continuous science and engineering tradition, not only moved from the individual nor collective desire of making money, but mainly for the desire of knowledge and self growing. There is

It's nice to know that people's view of China haven't changed in 50 years. US Education system is doing it's normal bang up job.

Before you laugh too heavily about China's "space seeds," you might want to remember that most American believe:

1. The earth was created in 7 days2. That god created people "as is"3. Evolution is a myth

You see America can trump China in ignorance everytime.

But let's not also forget:

1. all the capital investment going into China - China leads the world in foreign investment.2. the trade deficit - the US imports more goods from China then we export.3. China has HUGE cash reserves, meanwhile the US is running a 6 trillion dollar deficit which will only get larger thanks to medicare and social security benefits, the war in iraq.4. almost all electronics and manufacturing is done in china.5. china's population - a sellers wet dream. the us' market dominance is fading as more and more chinese have disposable income.

I have to believe (perhaps naively) that this isn't going to happen, at least not on the scale the article might suggest.

All things being equal (which, of course, they're not, but...), I don't see how a country which pursues censorship and control of information on the Internet to the degree that China does can innovate and get ahead here. The free flow of ideas is a better soil for the tree of knowledge to grow.

IMO there is no first mover advantage for IPv6. Besides more addresses, most of the other good features of IPv6 have been backported to IPv4. So the only benefit is more addresses, and you only get that benefit after IPv4 addresses have run out. So switching to IPv6 before IPv4 addresses run out just ends up costing more (since router prices fall over time, the earlier you switch the more it costs).The article doesn't mention that there is a new NSF-funded effort in the USA called the Global Environment for [geni.net]

Can't seem to get to the article at the moment.What exactly do they want to improve on, to leapfrog the U.S.? Make it available to more people? Is there anyone in the U.S. that can't get access - at a local library if nothing else? Make it more mobile, so you have access anywhere you happen to be at the moment? I get EDGE service most places I want to be already here. Make it faster? A few megabits per second at home seems like enough to me. Not enough to stream HD content, but probably will be able to by t

Since when does technological innovation have it's roots in "beating the other guy". It's for advancement of society, for curiousity, for problem solving. Just because China does some research doesn't mean it's trying to win a "race". Sure they might have wanted in the past to play catch up in technological progress, but why are we so quick to assume it's a race? Why not just assume they're doing it for the betterment of society?

Where does all this xenophobia come from? The average Chinese citizen doesn't feel this way towards Americans, but for some reason, we are so paranoid about them. Perhaps the reason is that Chinese people consume a lot of American media, while here in America, we are less open towards foreign entertainment.

"The strategy, outlined in China's latest five-year plan, calls for the country to transition its economy from one based almost entirely on manufacturing to one that produces its own scientific and technological breakthroughs -- using a new and improved version of today's dominant innovation platform, the Internet.

Does anyone else think this sounds like the.com bubble version of government? Five year plan to transition from manufacturing to an economy based on becoming a leader in science and technology,

Why in the world would they add (CNGI) to the end of Chinese Next Generation Internet? This isn't some uber new technology. It's not any different from what every other country in the world is claiming they will do in the next 5 years. Oh, and if they can stretch DSL service out to my house on the lake, they can block access to articles about Tianneman Square and Falun Gong all they like. "Give me Liberty, or Give Me Bandwidth!"

Well you've succesfully described about... 30% of the overall population. Among the rest you'll find some of the brightest thinkers in the world. America continues to be a country on the edge of innovation and that hasn't changed. The rest of the world is rapidly gaining, not because the U.S. has slipped, but because many other countries now embrace innovative freedom just has the U.S. has for more than a century. The world is getting smarter, and that should give all of us some optimism for what we'll be a